Geoff Cook believes English cricket is no longer stretching its players in the way it did five years ago.

England’s most dismal World Cup campaign does not end until tomorrow, but already the post-mortems have begun.

In the immediate aftermath of the defeat to Bangladesh which saw his side fail to qualify for the knockout stages, coach Peter Moores pointed to a lack of talent at his disposal.

“We haven’t got a left-arm seamer here or a left-arm spinner and we haven’t got a bank of them at home either,” he argued.

Questions are already being asked of Moores, as they will of captain Eoin Morgan and chairman of selectors James Whitaker. If Moores is right, though, changing those at the top will not address the real problems.

As Durham’s director of cricket, former England opener Cook has been involved in coaching for almost a quarter of a decade. He thinks the country is not making the best use of its talent.

While he believes finding the right structure is “an impossible task” in need of constant review, he feels it could be better.

“English cricket is full of really good players but the system doesn’t do them any favours,” he says.

“These players need to be in an environment that’s stretching them on a repeated basis.”

Cook believes the county game was in good shape between 2005 and 2009 – two Ashes-winning summers – but attempts to clamp down on mediocre overseas players, exacerbated by the proliferation of domestic Twenty20 and international cricket, have lowered standards.

“In the 2005-2009 period, the overall standard of county cricket was really strong,” he says. “There were some really good Kolpak players too.

“The whole international calendar has diluted the quality of player available and the ECB, along with the Government, has changed things (the criteria for signing non-English players). Five years ago you had players of the quality of Shane Warne, Muttiah Muralitharan and Mike Hussey in county cricket. That’s largely disappeared. There’s been anerosion of high-quality players.

“There’s a restriction on the type of player that can come in now, but it’s also to do with the international calendar. England need to look at their fixture list too.”

As Durham captain in 2005, Australian Hussey was instrumental in kick-starting the county’s golden era. Under the current rules, with his Test career yet to start, they would have been unable to sign him.

Had he joined this summer, rather than last, all-rounder John Hastings would have fallen foul of the criteria despite being the leading wicket-taker in Australia’s much-vaunted Big Bash League this winter.

Hastings missed the start of last season because he was playing at another of the world’s top Twenty20 competitions, the Indian Premier League. Cook admits Durham’s attitude towards it is more enlightened than it once was. In 2012 they blocked then-captain Phil Mustard from putting his name forward for the IPL auction. They took the same attitude with Paul Collingwood after taking over his contract fromEngland.

A lack of IPL exposure has been cited by many – including Stephen Harmison on these pages – for declining standards in England’s limited-overs cricket. As well as being the world’s most lucrative cricket competition, Harmison points to it as a breeding ground for innovation. Were any of the current squad to ask to be involved now, Cook says Durham’s stance would be rather different.

“Initially we were reticent to allow players to put themselves up for auction,” he admits. “We were as uncertain about the IPL as anyone but now the benefits are clear.

“We’ve got to give players the best chance to be top-class limited-overs players. It’s a fantastic aspiration.

“There’s no disgrace in wanting to be a top white-ball player. If you can produce wonderful cricketers of that type, that’s great for the game.

“There’s a lot of young players starting to develop white-ball skills, and the next challenge is for them to transfer them over to the red-ball game. David Warner is an extreme example.”

Cook thinks the current Twenty20 balance is skewed too far in favour of quantity over quality.

Whereas the IPL and Big Bash come in short, sharp blasts top overseas players can fit around their international commitments, the Twenty20 Cup is a long drawn-out affair, running from May to August with even the England players rarely seen.

The elephant in the room is the number of English counties. Aping the format of the top leagues would need franchises cutting the likes of Cook’s former side Northamptonshire out of the picture.

“The Twenty20 Cup is an elongated competition that doesn’t do justice to the players,” he says.

“Balancing the desire to play as much Twenty20 as possible to bring in revenue, or having a shorter competition to attract the best players is a dilemma.

“The Twenty20 has become such an important part of the counties’ incomes, so the clubs want to play a lot more Friday-night games. That’s going to extend the whole thing.

“It’s almost impossible to bring in top-class overseas players for three-and-a-half months with all the other commitments they have.

“Numerically, having franchises to congregate all the best players makes sense, but whether it can be done in a healthy way is another question.”

England’s attitude to 50-over cricket is even more bewildering. Last time was the first season since 2009 the format was used in county cricket, preferring the quicker fix of 40 overs-a-side. Little wonder England have looked so unsure of how to play it.

Even now, the One-Day Cup is a bit of an afterthought, running from late July into the season’s final week when conditions at Lord’s are heavily in the bowlers’ favour, as Durham found when they won September’s low-scoring final.

“I would question whether playing it towards the end of a long English season does it any favours,” Cook argues.

“If teams get a good start they retain 100% interest and 100% commitment to the competition, but the rest can start using it to rest players. It doesn’t do anything to improve standards.”

There are, as Cook says, no easy answers – but it is important the questions are still asked.